Modernizing Samoans are characterized high levels of certain cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors such as extreme adiposity and high prevalences of obesity and hypertension. However, lipid levels in Samoans such as total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol are not consistent with their obesity and not always consistent with ecological measures of modernization. The overall research objective of this study is to evaluate the role of known genes involved in lipid metabolism on serum lipid and apolipoprotein levels in 1,301 adults ages 29-59 years residing in American and Western Samoa, who are exposed to the biobehavioral changes of modernization. The planned studies reflect the intellectual overlap among investigators from two different institutions. This objective will be achieved through the following specific aims: quantitative determinations of lipid and apolipoprotein levels (Aim 1), estimation of the effects of dietary intake on lipid and apolipoproteins (Aim 2), cross-sectional analyses of genetic factors influencing lipid and lipoprotein levels (Aims 3, 4), statistical analyses to test hypotheses about gene-environment interactions (Aim 5) and gene-gene interactions (Aim 6) in polynesians from American Samoa and Western Samoa. Diet, physical activity and body size vary with exposure to the influences of economic modernization and the adoption of non- traditional behaviors. Although adiposity and its central distribution, insulin, blood pressure and dietary cholesterol increase from Western Samoa to American Samoa, saturated fat intakes due to coconuts and cigarette smoking are greater in Western Samoa. Thus, modernization does not produce simple unilineal changes in risk factors. We will examine very specific hypotheses, based on the cross-sectional data collected in 1994 and 1995, about the influence of genes on lipids, about genetic interactions on lipids and about concrete environmental and specific gene interactions on lipid outcomes.